The Interrogation

Renee Gladman

His friends are waiting patiently in front of a popular cafe—waiting because they love him, he thinks. This walking, he will say to them when he arrives, was difficult for me. There were obstacles in the street—though I can’t prove it. Every time I hit one, falling on my head was the result, and by the time I had recovered from the fall, there was no accessible memory.

Seeing them—in their glorious postures. He wants to yell encouragement, but is too tired to say the words. These are good friends, though. They know how to wait. Soon I will arrive and we’ll eat. Then he trips and falls into a pothole.

When twenty minutes later he reaches them they are having an argument about eggs:

Monique is saying, We have to think seriously here … the signals are always scrambled … what we have to do is figure out their corporate hours, then go in there and fuck em up … no, this does not support democracy, but we are beyond that occasion. While Stefani shouts, Yeah, let’s lay em all out, during M.’s ellipses.

He thinks, this might not be about eggs and perhaps I’m not supposed to hear. But these are my friends! They’re smiling at me; one has his hand on my shoulder. They want me to ease into this conversation when I have been struggling to get here, when the worst things have happened to me.

His best friend F. is among the group, and has his hand on the newcomer’s shoulder, trying to involve him in the conversation: So man, what do you think? Turning to him. The newcomer, with fuzzy head says, I just want to eat. I never care what it is.

His friends appear to agree with him because three of them have walked away with the purpose, he presumes, of securing a table. This is the warmest day we’ve had so far, he says to himself as Adolfo tries to kiss him. He shakes him off and a minute later the others return. They stand around him, smoking.

Stefani says, Monique, what’s this? Leaning on F. for assistance. I have made some diagrams, she answers, of the inner labyrinth, so that we’ll know where to place our men.

Don’t be so—he snaps, exhausted and hungry, So—

Freddie finds the group a table. It’s beautiful today, he says with some hesitation. Are we sure? I’m sure, the newcomer blurts. This is the perfect spot for me.

After a few minutes of silence, Adolfo turns to the newcomer and asks, So what happened to you last night?

To the newcomer this is a dream. For a moment, he looks inside. This is what I was hoping for. They want my story. When I was young, in the summers, this is what I imagined. A group turning to me, members with a cock to their heads. Awaiting—me. Not like the time I almost fell into the fire when Freddie was searching for more wood and something in that search kept him away for hours. As I lay there. And our other friends, who are now long gone, wandering in their drugs—

He shakes his head, These are not my memories. Shakes his head again, more violently, where are my memories?

Then he locks on to a series of aerial images.

Birds don’t fly that low, he observes with growing paranoia. What’s that? Then a mosquito buzzes by. He moans, what’s that? He turns down a concrete path, slinking away from the bird: got to get away, but quietly so the fly does not notice me. The path runs along the periphery of this memory, which could just as well be outside, except that it’s not. Even he suspects it, yanking at the leaves from passing branches and shoving them up his nose. Real leaves of a real outside have a distinct and dirty smell—

Stefani zips his sweatshirt shut and pushes him out the door. No more memory. Outside the cafe, he looks around. The light is low, as after a storm or shortly before sunset, or as a result of wearing shades, or some doom is coming. He feels his hand flapping around on his face, looking for shades. Decides to ask, Stefani, what’s on my face? She says she can’t report if she’s not looking at him. Well, look at me! But you said not to!

Where did everybody go?

Ikea.

Why?

To blow it up.

What you doing?

Keeping my eye on you.

How, if you don’t look at me?

I’ve been listening for you.

Where have we been all day?

There, eating eggs.

It’s hard to believe that I have been away from myself for so many hours and I do not feel the least bit rested. In fact, what’s all this on my shoulders? What’s pouring out of my eyes and toes? Not my chi. Where’s that? He closes his eyes as S. pulls him by the hand. Aware of their destination and confident that S. will deliver them there, he takes the opportunity to put order to his mind.

Now let’s see … where is that chi? Inside himself again, walking through some chamber with his head down, he glimpses a photo on the floor. It’s damaged, ripped in several pieces—but he recognizes the face. His. Taken a few years ago.

I remember the store I’m posed in front of. I used to meet the group there. How did this picture get separated from the others? And why is it destroyed? He looks around with caution, as if caught “in” something. Then snaps, this is my mind, no one else should be here, against a creeping fear of being post-invasion.

The next morning he wakes with his ass pressed against Adolfo’s hip, concentrating on his dreams. Monotonous as always but with a new array of characters, who are much more violent than the nights before. —Wait, he thinks it’s Adolfo. The pain in his ass is the same, so it must be Adolfo. Yet besides what he knows to have existed in the past, there is no other evidence. Soon he will have to turn around to see. But there is no light, no sun shining through his blackened windows. He will have to touch his face to know.

If he turns around and it’s not Adolfo, he will want to squash whomever it is, unless that person’s stronger. He might even give in to rage. No, the best way to find out if it’s Adolfo is to get the person to talk.

He’s thinking of something to say. Says in one of my dreams people were playing with firearms and I was not sure what to do. Silence. Says then there was glass everywhere. I wonder if I screamed. Did I scream? Silence, as that following cell death. He imagines himself embraced by a lifeless body and with a mixture of disgust and anticipation he reaches his hand back to tap the hip bone, and it jumps.

—waking again, sometime during the day. He looks around himself and supposes that he has slept for a week. This time he is not in his bed but at a breakfast table in front of a plate of eggs. The group is there.

When he comes to, M. is speaking.

What is she talking about? Monique is not using regular language. It’s a code! And everyone seems to know it, but me! Where did they pick this up? She keeps saying, “Ha chini chini” and the rest of them nod their heads. Did I comprehend this shit before I woke up? Maybe if I relax I will find that I too speak this language.

He leans back in this chair, clears his mind and utters:

“Ma chaney aravici delimatool. Econ ha chini chini.”

The response is as expected. Faces turn to him. He thinks, damn I should have asked a question, then they would have been forced to answer. Monique continues talking. She says many things, but “ha chini chini” is all he hears.

I keep thinking about those words … as though I know them—

S. pokes him in the side with her elbow and whispers, Isa uma kuni. Monique ma uma kuni. He shakes her off. Argh! What’s this? Something’s sticking me. He reaches under his ass and finds some pieces of wire. He shouts, Ja se pa cahini, then clamps his hand over his mouth. Why did I say that? Holding the wire in his hand, which Freddie grabs and places in a box.

The last time I was in a box it was Spring, he recalls. The old group had gone downtown to sell papers and left me behind to clean up. We had rented a small room in the old warehouse district. Somebody left a box open, one of the kinds we used when mailing things overseas, and I step back into it. Laid there for hours, not because I couldn’t get up but because I was comfortable there. I couldn’t remember who we were against. Lying there, that was all I wanted to picture. I thought, On my back and safe in this tiny room, I want to think about my enemies. It was easy. No one intruded—everything was fine. I stayed behind. But the image never surfaced. That’s not true. Several images came to me, but none of them seemed right. I kept saying, no this couldn’t be the enemy, discarding the idea.